loving living

Chap Goh Meh/ Yuan Xiao Jie/ Lantern Festival

A Chap Goh Meh (十五暝) with the family plus the all important yummy tangyuan (汤圆) in a long long time. All thanks to Jingheng for struggling against napping at my sis’ place for so long such that we missed the time to hit home before the crazy peak hour.

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I have no idea 元宵节 is also known as Lantern Festival, which I have always associated with the Mooncake Festival (Mummy, it’s Mid Autumn Festival! No wonder you are mixing up all the names! Don’t teach me the wrong things!). Being the food-crazy Singaporeans we are, I am not surprised we’ve retained the tradition of eating, but pretty much left the lanterns-carrying to Mid Autumn and riddle-guessing 猜灯谜 to the very clever people down by the 河畔. Well, I hope Jingheng can pick up some 灯谜 skills from his Ah Gong and 姑婆！

I also didn’t know 元宵 actually means tangyuan! What…?! Yuanxiao has been used by northern Chinese since Ming Dynasty, but the southern Chinese renamed it to tangyuan, a more literal description of the food. That explains why we know it as tangyuan, since we are also southern Chinese by descent. I wonder what my Beijing/ Tianjin friends call it as?

Note to self: Do not offer tangyuan (with fillings) to a coughing toddler, no matter how teeny tiny the portion is. Potent to cough. To experiment with a plain tangyuan in future when all factors are correct.